Major Tom Moment
I don’t know what you do for music in the car, but we have an old iPhone that we leave plugged into one of the usb ports. It has a pretty decent Spotify playlist on it that contains a bunch of music without swear words. There’s over 1250 songs so it has something for everyone. It’s set to random, but it seems to double up on anything by the Imagine Dragons, Katy Perry, and Passion Pit. I blame my kids. And algorithms.
But I digress.
The other day Nola (9) and Judah (5) were casually looking out the window as we were driving along a quiet street when Peter Schilling’s ‘Major Tom’ surfaced. In my mind I saw the scene in High Fidelity when John Cusack plays The Beta Band. I dialed up the volume. About 45 seconds into the song…
Nola
What’s this song, Dad?
Steve
It’s Major Tom by Peter Schilling. You like it?
Nola
Yeah.
Steve
EVERYONE likes this song! You like this song, bud?
Judah
No.
(Because of course.)
Steve
Listen to the words, bud. It’s about rockets and space travel.
‘All systems are go, are you sure?
Control is not convinced
But the computer has the evidence
No need to abortThe countdown starts…’
At this I held up my hand between the seats to mime the countdown. Two things to note here:
1) When Schilling says ‘The countdown starts’, nah, the countdown doesn’t actually start until after a stanza later when he says, ‘The count goes on’.
2) The countdown begins on 4, not 5.
‘Four three two one…’
So I had to do a quick finger adjustment, but I could tell from the hushed awe behind me that Nola was into it. (Judah not so much.) And then I knew Nola was hooked when I mimed-danced the next part…
‘Earth below us
Drifting, falling
Floating, weightless’
…because she started doing it, too. We played/mime-danced the song two or three more times before we got to our destination, and then we moved on.
Or so I thought. Because after dinner…
Nola
Alexa, play Major Tom.
Alexa
Gründlich durchgecheckt Steht sie da Und wartet…
(This kept happening until I performed a quick google search…)
Steve
Alexa, play Major Tom Coming Home.
Turns out Nola likes to fully embrace the onomatopoeic quality of the lyrics, especially the part after ‘drifting’…
Nola
Mom, Dad, watch!
We watch as she does a straight crumple to the floor on ‘falling’…
Steve
Ah, I see what you did there.
Nola
Just watch just watch!
Pam
You’re going to hurt yourself.
Nola
I’m fine!
Steve
I get it, I get it. I’m totally seeing what you’re doing there, but you keep doing it.
‘Earth below us
Drifting, falling
Floating, weightless…’
Nola
(laughing)
Pam
Nola!
Steve
Sweetie, you’re going to hurt yourself.
Nola
I’m fine!
Pam
(looking at me)
Steve
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
‘Earth below us
Drifting, falling
Floating, weightless
Coming, coming home…’
Nola
(laughing)
I don’t know that this will get all the way to a high school talent show, but I don’t know that it won’t.
FIN.
Full disclosure: The is the first time I have ever used ‘onomatopoeic’.
Fuller disclosure: No guilty pleasure. I totally love this song.
Fullest disclosure: With some really cool lighting, a decent costume, and some awesome NASA footage projected onto a scrim at the rear of the stage… it could really be something.
Fun fact: The song is 37 years old.
Fun fact: It’s a follow-up to David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’.
Fun fact: Yeah, I googled it.
